Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Special’ On Netflix, About A Guy Who Is Gay And Disabled And Just Wants To Start Adulting

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Special

If you’ve never heard of Ryan O’Connell before, it’s because he’s been behind-the-scenes during the first few years of his career, writing for comedies like Awkward and Will & Grace. But now he’s in front of the camera in his new semi-autobiographical series Special. Read on for more about Ryan’s show and his unique perspective.

Opening Shot: A young man is walking down a sunny street, headphones on, when he seemingly falls for no reason. A kid comes out and asks if he needs help. The man says no, he’s OK, and when the kid thinks that the man is injured due to his unusual gait, the man tries to explain the concept of cerebral palsy to him. The kid screams and scooters away.

The Gist: Ryan (Ryan O’Connell) has a mild form of cerebral palsy; he laments to his physical therapist that he’s not disabled enough. “I’m not able-bodied enough to be hanging in the mainstream world, but I’m not disabled enough to be with the cool PT crowd.” He’s also gay and more than a bit inexperienced. “What would my Grindr profile even say? ‘I’m gay and disabled! But I promise not to drool on you until the third date!'”

Ryan lives with his mother Karen (Jessica Hecht), who has devoted all her energies to taking care of him; while he’s starting to feel he can go live on his own, she’s not sure. His first step is to get an internship at one of his favorite websites, Eggwoke. On his first day, he pitches a humor piece to the site’s mean AF editor Olivia (Marla Mindelle) but she tells him that they’ve pivoted to confessional essays like “Why Do I Keep Finding Things Inside My Vagina?”

The magazine’s best writer, Kim (Punam Patel), gets lots of traffic for her essays on embracing her body, and she befriends Ryan. She encourages him to pitch stuff that’s personal to him, so he mentions that he got hit by a car a few weeks back (which is true, but it was only a tap). Kim realizes that’s why Ryan walks funny, and Ryan doesn’t dissuade him from the notion. He’d rather be known as “the guy who got hit by a car” than “the guy with cerebral palsy.”

Our Take:Special works well on several levels. For one, O’Connell, who is the writer and executive producer (along with Jim Parsons others), is telling his own story. Even if it’s only semi-autobiographical, the facts are there: He’s young, disabled and gay and just wishes he wasn’t in “limbo” in so many aspects of his life. It’s a perspective that we don’t see on TV at all, especially the idea that someone who is mildly disabled might actually be jealous of people who are more severely disabled because at least people don’t think he just twisted an ankle and sprained his wrist. And O’Connell plays his fictional self as a sweet guy who just wants to be an adult for the first time in his life.

More things that work: Karen is an overbearing mom, but not in the usual manic way you see in comedies, which is a testament to Hecht, who’s been killing it since most people first saw her on Friends. In fact, as Karen spies a new neighbor (Patrick Fabian) mowing his lawn, she gets a serious case of the feels, which Ryan sees as a hopeful sign that she wants things to change, too. Another thing that works: Despite the fact that the episodes run from 12 to 17 minutes, there is more than enough plot to feel satisfied at the end of each episode. It makes us wonder why more comedies don’t focus and do shorter episodes rather than pad to 22 or 24 minutes.

We’re not 100% sure the Eggwoke part of the show works. We’ve seen so many shows send up millennial-driven, self-confessional websites with obnoxious bosses, it’s almost become cliche. But since we kept laughing at Olivia’s awfulness as the episodes went on, we figure that even if it’s cliche, at least it’s funny.

Photo: Netflix

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode, but Ryan does lose his virginity in another episode, and nothing about that scene is implied or hidden.

Parting Shot: Ryan changes the title of his essay from “My Journey To Healing” to “Getting Hit By A Car Was Fucking Awesome!” He’s so happy no one knows him as the “CP guy”.

Sleeper Star: We love Punam Patel, because she plays Kim’s fearlessness so well. She not only is comfortable in her own skin, but she’s the only Eggwoke staffer who stands up to Olivia because she knows she’s the only writer who generates any traffic.

Most Pilot-y Line: Olivia finds out that Ryan was hit by a car, and she gets the whole staff to hug him. It was one of the few scenes that was a bit over-the-top, even for Olivia.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Special is funny and warm, and gives a perspective you don’t often see on TV. We hope Netflix gives it a chance.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.